


White Noise

by ThatwasJustaDream



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, mcdanno, romcom Steve and Danny, until it gets serious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-31 18:21:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny Williams has a big decision to make about his girlfriend and their futures. He thinks he's found the perfect place to figure it all out...until Tall, Dark and Goofy walks out of the waves and pisses him off... repeatedly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaige68](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaige68/gifts).



> This work is a reward for Kaige68. The prompt I wrote to: A cabin by the sea, a pair of jeans, and a next door neighbor.

Calling them cabins was a slap in the face to cabins everywhere Danny thought as he pulled into the vacation park’s long, rutted driveway. Real cabins - they're made with _logs_ , not _cement with log-like paneling_ glued all over them.

The advertisement in the circular at his favorite grocery store back home had not lied about the unparalleled view, though: the only thing out the front window of every single unit was the Atlantic Ocean, rolling grey and black and loud, fifty sloping, grassy, rocky yards of Maine real estate away. 

It was chilly when he stepped out of the car, chilly in August, ocean spray landing on his skin as he walked toward the cabin marked 'office'.

"Hope the ro-are won't keep ya up?" the proprietor assessed him quickly as he handed over the key. 

'City boy,' Danny saw in his eyes.

"Normally," he shrugged, conceding it. "Yeah, I'd be cursing it pretty hard. But this week… I need white noise. To clear the brain, you know?"

"Ah, well you're in luck then," he'd taken Danny's check for the stay and handed him a stack of towels hot from the dryer in the back room. "We've got that in spades."

~*~

He mostly slept, walked the shore, and hit the seaside restaurants one by one at first. What he didn't do was force the conversation he needed to have with himself; the decisions about his future - alone or with Rachel – that had to be made soon.

Day three he decided it might be fun to converse with the other visitors, but a quick walk-by of the card tables, blankets and Jarts games on the lawn earned him only polite nods. 

"They're pretty insular," The owner looked apologetic as he tended to the charcoal grills. "Sorry. Just our way. Mostly, I see the same faces every single summer, fall…"

"Yeah, I figured," Danny had said, hands in pockets. "It’s okay. No insult taken."

~*~

Then, suddenly, as calming and pleasant as this place had been, there was no escaping the questions and doubts. They filled his whole next day, made him toss and turn at night ‘til it hurt to try to hold his eyes closed and he gave up trying.

It's why he was up at the flat, grey crack of dawn, stepping out of his cabin with his corneas burning, pulling on a sweatshirt with a hood in case it misted again and sorry he hadn't paid attention to when the restaurants would open.

“Hey!” He shouted, distracted from his vaguely aching head and tummy by the sight of a ridiculously tall, slender but buff man pulling himself out of the pounding surf. 

He looked exhausted, stumbling from the shock of the waves. He actually dropped to his knees for a second to cough and wretch and now Danny was running full speed to help.

He was halfway there, arms flying when he saw the guy lean in toward the sand and clear his sinuses unceremoniously on the beach, one and then the other, and … yeah. Um. He’s... fine. Yuck.

“What the….” Danny had never stopped running so quickly, but he also barely stopped in time; they were mere inches apart when the guy stood up, grinning down at his ‘rescuer’.

“Hi,” _Moron-Man Who Swims in Huge Waves_ said. Danny had to battle everything in him not to roll his eyes. “Thanks for getting involved. You know, a lot of people… they’d have let me drown.”

“Idiotic and sarcastic. Nice.” Danny shot a look out at the surf; the foot and a half high waves dancing and spitting on the rocks. “Trying to get yourself killed? You’re crazy, swimming in that mess for… what? Fun?”

“That?” He had the nerve to look slowly, casually back. “It was …bracing. Not crazy. If there were a Nor’easter rolling in and the waves were, uh, four times higher? _That’d_ be crazy…”

Danny was turned around and walking straight back to his cabin before he got the sentence fully out. He stopped dead when he heard a sharp whistle. Not a wolf-whistle, a ‘hey, stop’ whistle.

“You didn’t let me properly thank you, Danny,” tall, dark and sardonic engaged his gaze, gave him an actual ‘come fuck me’ look. “Let me take you out to dinner tonight?”

“Okay, hold up….” He wanted to walk calmly back and tell him it didn’t _matter_ how pretty his grey-green eyes were, he was _still_ a whack job. But somehow his body betrayed him and he zoomed back instead, shaking with overtiredness and annoyance. “How do you know my name, and how do you know a comment like that won’t get you decked? I could be some thick headed, bigoted …..”

“I know your name because the check-in book goes by cabin, and my cabin is next to yours. I got here right before eleven last night and saw ‘Danny Williams’ as I was signing. Just the one name. And I know I won’t get decked because it’s part of what I do for a living, taking care of myself. Plus…you’ve been checking me out. In fact, your eyes haven’t stopped moving over me the whole time we’ve been talking.”

“Get. Help.” Danny turned again, and only then realized that he could perfectly describe exactly how those swim trunks were clinging to that body fold by fold. You know. If he _had_ to.

“I’m Steve,” he heard the guy shout when he was almost all the way to the road to town. “I like to eat around seven thirty. If that’s not too early for you?”


	2. Chapter 2

It must have been the adrenaline from running to the shoreline, or the fear of maybe having to jump in and paddle through the chilly waves to save him. Either way the last drop of fight was drained from Danny.

He gave up on breakfast, tidied his room, downed a granola bar from the vending machine and collapsed into a blissfully dreamless state of unconsciousness.

Then it started. Banging. On his door. Not a knock, not a polite ringing of the doorbell: Someone was slamming a fist into the wood repeatedly and when that didn’t work they hammered out ‘shave and a hair cut two bits’ with a little something extra in each slam.

“No. Please. Tell me it’s the manager and my check for the room bounced….” Danny murmured to himself, still shaky with the thrum that comes with being tugged from a deep sleep. “Tell me it’s death with his scythe sharpened. Anyone but…”

“Danny? Daniel Williams, are you there? I need my clean jeans, buddy, and you’ve got ‘em so …stop ignorning me and open up.”

Sweet mother of God. The only person on the property who’d talk to him had to be this one.

“Have you considered my suggestion to seek help?” Danny said, still feeling shaky as he cracked the door open. “I offered it for your sake not for mine because this, _buddy_ , is the last time we are ever conversing so…. I won’t benefit from it at all.”

“You think I’m here to chase after you. Is that it?” 

Steve, if that was his real name, was standing with his legs slightly apart, arms crossed. He looked like Mr. Clean but with a substantially nicer physique, a head full of enticing black hair, piercing eyes and an appraising scowl. 

“Well, I know you’re not really here for your jeans. Because they would be a good five, six inches too long for me and there is no way in hell I’d ever confuse them for mine.”

“Will you at least look? Please? I saw you pulling stuff from the line out here before you went into your cabin and… I haven’t seen anyone else wandering around. So I’m thinking whether you realize it or not, you grabbed them.”

Danny motioned for him to hold the door somewhere around the words ‘into your cabin,’ and headed for the stack of clothes he’d folded not an hour before. He made it clear with the gesture that he didn’t buy a word of this and Steve was to stay put. 

Then he found the jeans that were not his own - right about the time Steve got to ‘you grabbed them.’

“I…uh…” Danny held them to his waist, the legs of them covering his feet and extending onto the floor. “…guess I owe you an apology. Unfortunately.”

“No worries,” Steve took them with a wide smile and turned, ready to walk away.

“Can I ask you something?”

Danny regretted the question immediately. Why was he stopping him? Why, why….why?

“Sure.”

“Do you hit on everyone that fast? The way you did with me?”

“No,” Steve said. “But for the record…. I was truly only asking you out to dinner and not actually hitting on you. I was going to pepper you with questions first. You know? Over some fresh air and seafood. Figure out what your deal is. Then… I was going to decide whether or not you’re someone I’d like to hit on. But I guess that won’t be necessary, will it? You’ve made yourself clear, so…..”

Danny watched Steve shrug and turn, and then…happily… he kept his mouth shut and let him leave.

He managed to get back to sleep. But not quite as easily as he had an hour ago.

~*~

Danny didn’t mean to join him for dinner. It was purely coincidental that he was ready to eat at 7:25pmish and the best restaurant he’d found in the neighborhood was a five minute walk away.

So yeah, it was no shock to see Steve was sitting in the fifth booth from the doorway when he walked in. What didn’t make sense was how his heart fell and then rose when he did see him. The ‘fell’ part he got. The rise was disconcerting.

He thought about walking to the counter and taking a seat there, just as Steve saw him. There was a quick but visible flash of ‘happy’ on Steve’s face and then he faked utter indifference - face turning toward the window, an arm going over the booth back as if he were just chilling out waiting for the waitress. His eyes even got all freaking full of wistful, fake-innocent blankness.

Of course, sitting that way also made the ‘V’ where his shirt was unbuttoned stand out and put the muscles in his arm stretched over the booth on better display.

“Asshole…” Danny muttered, but it was with something resigned and amused in his voice.

“I need food,” he said when he got to Steve’s booth. “That’s all. That’s the only reason I’m….”

“Oh…. hi. You’re here and I’m here. Funny, huh? Didn’t see you come in. The clam chowder is supposed to be kick ass.”

“Shut up,” Danny said, nudging Steve’s shoe before he sat. “It’s dinner, that’s all. Don’t get your hopes up.”

~*~

“Wait, hold up…” Danny pulled away just enough to get the words out.

He said them against Steve’s lips, Steve’s mouth taking the liberty of a couple more light sucks at his as soon as he stopped. Then Steve sat back, hand falling from the back of Danny’s neck to slide all the way down him and rest, still wrapped around him, on his hip, thumb making circles where it sat.

They were on their sides on a blanket at the camp, down by the water. Four beers and two empties sat to Steve’s left.

“Am I failing to make my case?” Steve asked, face still magnetically close to his, eyes darting from Danny’s eyes to his mouth and back again. “’Cause it felt like you were really getting on board with this.”

“Something…I have to tell you…” Danny needed to say it between quick breaths. 

Needed to, because he closed his eyes and Steve took advantage, leaning back in to nip at Danny’s lower lip. 

“Tell me what?” Steve asked, but then he was pulling Danny back in, hitching himself half over him, pressing their mouths together and Danny gave in to the tongue sliding slow but sure back along his.

“Mmmmmmm….” Danny sighed into the kiss and acknowledged the hips pushing against his, pushing back.

They’d spent two hours at dinner. They’d talked about their work, their lives, and family and Danny found himself feeling things other than annoyance in the guy’s presence.

He’d felt a pang for Steve, at the look on his face when Danny described life with his brother and sisters. He felt an even stronger pull when Steve told him how much he wished he’d had more time to grow up alongside his own sister. He wondered how it must have been, being on his own so young in life.

But all that? It wasn’t why he was rolling around on a blanket with him now. 

It was about something else - a weird kind of competitive, teasing ….simpatico. Something he hadn’t felt with anyone since……

Ever. He’d never known anyone like this huge, goofy moose ever in his life.

Jeez… he was in big trouble. 

Because of the repartee and because he’d lied to Steve. He’d told him he was single.

He’d lied to himself, too, hated hearing those words coming out of his mouth with Rachel back home waiting for an answer from him, sad and wondering about his sudden defection and her being maybe, possibly pregnant.

“Stop…seriously…gotta explain someth…”

“Okay, sorry. I got carried away…” Steve let him go but didn’t sit up, just rolled away, watching him with that sweet amused stare. “Explain what?”

“I…. uh…we should probably go inside. Before this goes anywhere else.”

“Why? There’s no one out here to…”

“I’m loud. Very. When …things start really happening, I have zero dirty language filter and no volume control.”

“Hell yeah…” 

The look of joy and anticipation on Steve’s face? Danny didn't have it in him to take that from him. 

“Your cabin or mine, Danny?”

“I literally could not care any less.”


	3. Chapter 3

From the moment they shut Danny’s cabin door, he felt like he was meeting Steve for the third time. 

The first guy? He’d pissed Danny off like clockwork, i.e. every few seconds. But then version two of him, at dinner and then later on the beach, had proven so much more dimensional than expected. A man who cared about the few people in his life to a degree Danny found touching.

This third one was quickly becoming his favorite for his very skilled, enthusiastic manner with the foreplay; soft mouth, a strong tongue, deft fingers that made fast work of Danny’s shirt buttons and then were all over his skin like Steve was starving for him.

“Slow down,” Danny pushed him a step away, out of breath. Steve was, too. “This…could go way too fast if you don’t.”

“Sorry,” Steve started stripping, smiling a little sheepishly. “Take it as a compliment if it does. Wanted you from the second you came running down the beach to ‘save’ me….”

It sounded so earnest that Danny felt the urge to come up with some quick, zippy retort but …the sight of Steve increasingly naked was too distracting. Shit, he was… _wow_ ; strong thighs, svelte waist, muscled ass that Danny suddenly wanted to decorate with his teeth. And his dick – it was already high and hard, dauntingly long, the head flared and flushed. It all made him feel extra conscious of Steve watching him strip, too, until….

“Fuck, you’re hot, Danny,” Steve reached out to get hands on him again, palms finding Danny’s hips, immediately sliding back, fingers teasingly pulling his cheeks apart. “Want you. Wanna top you. Can I?”

“Yessss….” 

No one was more surprised than Danny at the word sliding out of his mouth. It had been some time since he’d been with another guy - a lot longer since he’d been full-out fucked by one. 

But something about the way Steve was touching him, kissing him, making his skin heat up and his body go loose and pliant….he knew it was the right answer.

~*~

“You weren’t kidding,” Steve’s voice sounded heavier, raspier than Danny had ever heard it in their short time together.

“About what?” He shifted down a few inches, pressed his back closer to Steve’s front, enjoying the feeling of a strong arm drifting over his side and fingers idly playing with the fuzz on Danny’s chest.

“You’re really…loud.” Steve didn’t move when Danny shrugged, like ‘well…yeah…warned you,’ chuckling. “No, I mean… _I’m_ loud but you? I’m pretty sure you shouted for the whole holy trinity and the baby Jesus’ mom, too….”

“Yeah, well …what do you want me to say? I warned you. Plus, I had reasons. You….”

Danny tried to come up with the words, but they failed him for a second. All he could remember was Steve fully taking charge, working his body so skillfully that Danny was reeling, aching for a long, fat, wet dick in him by the time he was turned over and taken. 

It hurt when Steve pushed in, despite extravagant prep and a blowjob that nearly made him come – so much that Danny had given a startled shout. But Steve was patient, took it slow and the burn turned to ‘more, yeah, more.’ Then it was like the whole room was filled with them rocking, Steve’s hands holding Danny’s fisted ones down with his own, Steve’s skin pasted to his, a low voice in Danny’s ear murmuring ‘so good…knew you’d feel so good…’

“You were amazing,” Danny finally said. “A little…almost too much so.”

“What’s that mean?” Steve asked, but his voice was more curious than offended, happily.

“Well… it wasn’t like random, average one night stand sex. Which this is. Right?”

“Who says it has to be?”

“I….figured the way you are, all glib and smartass….”

“There’s more to me than that, D,” Steve tightened his grip, pulling him in even closer, lips finding Danny’s jaw.

“Yeah… I know,” Danny didn’t miss that he’d acquired a new knickname. “It’s just…”

“But don’t worry,” Steve broke the thought to suck in a long, heavy yawn as he lay back down. “Not a stalker. I’m not a crazy stalker.”

“Know that, too…” Danny felt the body behind him going loose, heavy. “It’s only…uh…”

He never finished the sentence and Steve was drifting off without another word anyway.

~*~

“So what are _you_ here to get away from?” Danny speared another bite of pancake at the diner the next morning. “What are all those crashing waves helping you think about ...or avoid thinking about?” 

It seemed like maybe a neutral way to open up topics that needed to be aired.

Steve looked up from his oatmeal at the question then went right back to it, answering slowly between bites.

“I’m trying to decide whether to re-up with the Navy or leave it and go home. I only have a few more days to decide and… well, I told you about my dad last night. How alone he’s been since my mom died. And even though he sent us away, I think… even though we missed a lot, I feel like he’d appreciate it if I come home. Maybe we could get to know each other again, better than I will only seeing him once in a while on leave.”

“But from what you told me, it sounds like you love the Navy.”

“You can love more than one thing. More than one person. Right? It’s never simple.”

“I get that,” Danny said. 

Steve nearly put his spoon down and then did, took a drink of his coffee. Danny could tell he wanted to ask something back, so it was surprising when the next thing out of his mouth was a statement and not a question.

“I’m sorry I came on a little strong last night,” Steve said. “With the …uh… flowery words.”

“No worries,” Danny dove back into his pancakes. “And …you didn’t exactly get flowery. Maybe just kind of affectionate. No sin in that.”

“Yeah. There isn’t. But… it’s not like me. So you know. It’s not something I do easily.”

“Yeah?” Danny said, saw Steve’s cheekbones flushing, like he realized he’d given even more away than he’d meant to. “Just can’t resist me, huh?”

“I was thinking about going for a ride today,” Steve changed the subject hard. “There’s a place up the road…Skyline Drive. Supposed to be a nice place to spend the afternoon. Want to come with?”

“Sure,” Danny took the hint, kept it light, left the inevitable questions still unanswered to stay laying where they were. “Sounds good.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Did you call them?”

“Them?”

“You know. Work, as in your place of employment – your precinct chief. Can you take a few more days off?”

Danny had already burned off a fair amount of his planned stay before Steve had shown up. Technically, he should be back there tomorrow, should be back with….

“Yes,” he said. “I did. No one’s dialing 9-1-1 looking for me. They know.”

They knew he was having enough fun to not want to come back, which for work purposes was fine - Danny would get nothing but high fives and ‘lucky bastards’ at the office. As for Rachel… 

“Good,” Steve shifted, flattening out almost fully on his back, urging Danny half over him, and Danny let the rest of that thought go. 

Only three days together, and they’d already found a shape and a rhythm in bed – their bodies aligned just so, Steve’s arm drifting down around Danny’s hip, hand on his ass pulling him in tight. Didn’t matter the exact angle or whether they went off the rails they always found it again; that sweet, hypnotic twist - all muscles, mouths, tongues and friction.

“Wait,” Steve slowed to a stop despite the protesting ‘uhhhnn...no” from Danny, turning around toward the night table. “Let me get this; chafing insurance. Bought us something new to try when we stopped off at the….”

“Oh _hhh_ hh…yeah, you did,” Danny felt the warm tingle right away, and pulled back enough to look down and watch Steve applying it, taking them both in hand to slather it and stroke up and down. “Do you really think we need lube with a little something extra? Not gonna help me last, gorgeous.”

“I don’t care about lasting,” The tube tossed away Steve pulled him back in, angling. “Love it when you come really hard. Want to hear that. Wanna hear you come every way there is to…awww, yeahhhhh…”

His words were getting shorter, tighter before he even got them all out and damn that wasn’t helping, either…. 

Between the sound of Steve getting wound up, the lightning running up his spine and into his balls, their cocks sliding, pressing, filling and twitching…. 

“Fuuu….uck me. Hell..mmmmmm…” 

Danny felt himself going past the point of words eventually, felt Steve watching him, extra alert, taking in every bit of Danny falling apart for him. It was like the louder he got the more silent Steve went, just the occasional grunt to punctuate Danny’s moans until Danny lost it and then he heard him falling, too, a swallowed exclamation as Steve got up over him, hips bucking fast and hard to push every second of _fuckyeahlikethatyessss_ out of them both.

“Son of a bitch,” Danny said from under him, face smushed against Steve’s left pec. “That was…. oh…..gonna be sore even with the special lube.”

“Mmmmmm…..” Steve rolled off, sliding to give Danny air, his head finding a nook by Danny’s neck. “Worth it. A hundred percent worth it.”

They’d argued vaguely about who was getting up to get a wash cloth until they both fell asleep where they lay. Danny vaguely woke to the feeling of warmth and wet and cotton trailing over him an hour later, then sank right back into dreamland again. 

~*~

“You said you were single, Danny,” Steve was pacing their strip of the beach the next evening, the end out by the rocks. “I asked you, and you said….you told me….”

When it fell apart, it fell apart all at once.

“I am single. As in not married.”

“Are you kidding me? That’s your response? What’s her name?”

“Rachel.”

“Do you two live together?”

“No, I swear if we did live together… I get it, that would be just as bad as if we…”

“But you’ve been dating how long?”

“Um…a year. Little more.”

“Does she stay over a lot? You stay with her?”

“Why does it matter? I told you if you’re serious… if _this_ feels as real to you as it does to me, then I’ll….”

“Does she know you cheat on her?”

“That is….so not fair. I don’t. I’ve never once before….”

“Right. You expect me to believe you don’t cheat. So, what, you just fell so fast and crazy for me that you…”

“Yes. I did.”

“Please.”

“I couldn’t stand you. Remember? And then …that night, us talking til, like, five a.m…..I don’t know, it clicked and I realized what I thought was glib and brash and bullshit was…you being real. I come from a place where people never put themselves out there that way with no…front. No façade. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah. I guess I do. But Danny….you lied to me. Why?”

The worst part was how hollow Steve’s voice sounded; not angry, just empty with disbelief and …something else. What was it? Danny’s heart fell a little more when it dawned: That was a whole lot of ‘oh no, not again’ he was hearing.

“Who hurt you?” Danny blurted it. “Steve… tell me. Who hurt you?”

That’s when Danny watched him walk. Steve didn’t shoot him a look or react in any other way he could decipher. He just turned on one heel and….left. 

Danny followed him toward the cabins, heart sinking. He’d known this wouldn’t go over well, but for the first time it felt like maybe he’d screwed up badly.

~*~

“Tell me, c’mon….” Danny followed Steve into his cabin, relieved Steve didn’t try to stop him. “I’m not leaving ‘til you…”

“Freddy. My best friend growing up. We went through training together, we supported each other wherever we were weak. We always had someone to celebrate the milestones with. Then…eventually, after we went overseas together….. we started fucking around. It was safer, I think, to turn to each other -- no one you couldn’t trust, no one who might tell or mess with your head and your career.”

“I get it,” Danny said. “I have a former partner like that, too.”

“Yeah, well, did you former partner ditch you to hook up with a girl he doesn’t even love? To make his dad happy?”

“No. Can’t say… can’t say I’ve ever gone through that.”

“If he’d told me first, if he’d been honest I think I could have dealt with it. But …”

“Is that why you’re really thinking about leaving the Navy?”

“I have to see him all the time, Danny. We work together all the time and lives are in our hands. It’s …”

“A nightmare,” Danny finished for him. “I know, I really do. But I swear… I’m not Freddy and I’m won’t leave or lie or cheat, Steve, I mean it.”

“Why did you come here and leave Rachel for a week?”

It came so out of the blue that Danny froze for a second.

“Are you changing the subject because…”

“No, I’m not deflecting,” Steve said. “I’m realizing. We’re both running, so what are you running from? She expecting to marry you? Is she….”

“She might be pregnant. She told me while we were arguing about not getting married yet. Because I’m not sure. Not ready.”

“And then?”

“And then I left. And came here.”

Steve’s eyes went to the ground, his head shaking ‘no’ and Danny knew from the hard set of that mouth that he’d lost the battle if not the whole war.

“I… I’ve gotta go.” 

“Woah, no…wait,” Danny got a hand on his arm, tugging. “Can we…I don’t know, maybe reset things here? Try to start over again, from the top?”

“Maybe if I hadn’t gone through what I have lately, I could lie to myself and try. But after the last few months of living my life feeling all busted up every day? I … need some air.”

Steve slipped through his grip like Danny wasn’t even there. 

“I’ll… see you in the morning, okay?”

~*~

Danny found himself alone when he woke up, found a note on the table that read ‘meet me at the diner.’ So he hit the shower in his own place, changed up and walked it instead of driving. 

He needed some air, too.

“Hey,” he slid into the booth, waiting a long pause when Steve only faintly looked up from his coffee. “You’re already gone. Aren’t you?”

“I’m staying in the Navy,” Steve said, and as much as it sucked to hear it Danny felt something like relief for him. “Why…fuck up my life focusing on the part I’m bad at and throw away the part I’m good at?”

“That’s not why you’re staying. You’re going back because you love it. What about Freddy?”

“I’ll find a way to be his friend again. If you really care about someone…you should be able to do that. Right?”

“That’s what they say.”

The waitress came and took Danny’s order, and they ate a last breakfast together in surprisingly comfortable silence. 

~*~

“What about your father?” Danny asked, fists deep in his pants pockets as Steve shut the trunk of his rental car. 

“I’ll see him whenever I get leave. Probably enough for him, honestly.” Steve leaned against the car. “What about Rachel?”

“If she is pregnant… we’ll get married.”

“There are options, you know. You can still be part of…”

“Maybe, but… it might be for the best. Who knows, a kid could turn out to be the real love of my life. I think I might be a good dad.”

The look that crossed Steve’s face – it was awful watching it, that sense of what Danny might have soon that he may not, ever. 

Danny started to try to say something comforting but Steve stopped him, leaning in for a fast, light kiss and a hug that lingered, them wrapped around each other.

“Take it easy, Danny.”

~*~

He wanted one last walk on the beach, to let the sound of the ocean be the last thing he took with him. But it wasn’t easy getting some peace. As much as people had avoided solo him, they’d glommed onto them as a duo – Danny had a dozen people to say goodbye to before he could get even get his walk in.

By the time he made it to their spot, the afternoon air was heavy and wet. Oppressive. The water lapped at the shore- no crash and boom, just slick, treacherous rocks and the thick smell of sea salt.

Danny tossed his stuff in the back seat of his car and pointed it north. Toward home and whatever it held for him.


End file.
